Articles by and about Claire Edwardes

The 2007 Flametree Festival, directed by Heidi Jones and James Beck, was recently held at Bundanon – Arthur and Yvonne Boyd’s ‘living arts centre’ on the South Coast of NSW. Percussionist Claire Edwardes, one of the performers at the Festival, described the event as a ‘once in a lifetime experience’...

The new music scene is buzzing with anticipation. In just under four weeks, composers, music educators, performers, arts administrators, and writers from across Australia will gather in Sydney to celebrate the thriving talent and artistic excellence in our community at the 2007 Classical Music Awards.

One couldn’t help but notice the strong presence of outstanding percussionists amongst this year’s list of winners at the 2007 Classical Music Awards held last night at the Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay...

The cavernous Carriageworks foyer greets audiences with splashes of bold modernity slotted alongside time-capsule echoes of near-forgotten industry. If the 21st century is settling into an aesthetic, it appears to be this – not obliteration of the past through fetishisation of the new, nor a desperate attempt to preserve a past slipping from our grasp as we attempt to clutch it. This compromise between the old and the new, original form and necessary function, mirrors a struggle music presents every time a composer sits to write – the weight of history pushing back, the imperative that drives them to break or break through.

A dozen or so years ago, Claire Edwardes was a talented young woman studying percussion at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and performing as part of the newly-founded 'Spring Ensemble'. In 2009, with a wealth of experience under her belt, she is working with young composers from the Sydney Conservatorium as part of the Kammerklang initiative – and remembering her own immersion into contemporary music as an opinionated, second-year student...

The Art Music Awards gala event held at the Playhouse, Sydney Opera House, on Tuesday 3 April 2012, honoured winners across ten national categories and in seven state awards. The comments below reflect the difficult task the judging panel members faced when choosing first the finalists and finally the winners from a considerable number of high-quality works. See also: '2012 Art Music Awards - winners' (news article on Resonate 4 April 2012.)

Percussionist and Ensemble Offspring artistic director Claire Edwardes has been awarded a two-year Fellowship by the Australia Council for the Arts, following a particularly competitive round of applications. Other new fellows are Karin Schaupp, Paul McDermott, and Matthew Robinson. Project Fellowships, intended for creative or developmental projects by mid-career and established artists, went to Chris Abrahams, Andrew Ford ...

'We were initially unsure of what sort of program we should be taking with us to the hallowed new music grounds that are the European concert halls, but I think that, in the end, touring an almost exclusively fresh and new Australian program was the right thing to do', writes Claire Edwardes. Offspring's European tour featured works by seven Australian composers, plus international repertoire.